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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:07,060 --> 00:00:08,360 This is the story 2 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,630 of an incredible scientific adventure, 3 00:00:11,630 --> 00:00:15,330 of an unlikely collection of scientists and engineers, 4 00:00:15,330 --> 00:00:20,600 dreamers and schemers, who attempted the impossible... 5 00:00:22,340 --> 00:00:24,610 Aaaah! 6 00:00:24,610 --> 00:00:28,110 To control gravity. 7 00:00:28,110 --> 00:00:30,010 Gravity is the fundamental force 8 00:00:30,010 --> 00:00:34,410 that holds us to the earth and binds the universe together, 9 00:00:34,420 --> 00:00:37,550 yet, we still don't fully understand it. 10 00:00:37,550 --> 00:00:39,450 Gravity is the most mysterious 11 00:00:39,460 --> 00:00:41,730 of all the fundamental forces. 12 00:00:41,730 --> 00:00:44,100 The ultimate challenge I can think of, 13 00:00:44,100 --> 00:00:47,690 as a scientist, is to control gravity. 14 00:00:47,700 --> 00:00:50,040 The scientific quest triggered a race 15 00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:55,330 between rival corporations, government, and military. 16 00:00:55,340 --> 00:00:58,080 It can destroy the missiles 17 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:01,550 or remove them from their trajectory. 18 00:01:01,550 --> 00:01:04,450 Fueled by the paranoid fear of missing 19 00:01:04,450 --> 00:01:08,090 the greatest technological advance in history. 20 00:01:08,090 --> 00:01:10,520 If just one idea works, 21 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,860 if only partly, 22 00:01:12,860 --> 00:01:14,360 you won the jackpot! 23 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:17,160 If the dream of gravity control ever came true, 24 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:19,230 it would revolutionize the world 25 00:01:19,230 --> 00:01:22,870 and could send us to the stars. 26 00:01:22,870 --> 00:01:24,640 Aaaaah! 27 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:28,230 Aaah! 28 00:01:29,740 --> 00:01:32,740 Captions by vitac www.Vitac.Com 29 00:01:32,740 --> 00:01:35,740 captions paid for by Discovery communications 30 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:52,590 In the late 1980s, 31 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:55,130 aerospace engineer Ron Evans was working 32 00:01:55,130 --> 00:01:59,600 in the defense industry in lancashire, england. 33 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:02,970 He'd been trying to find a way to detect stealth bombers 34 00:02:02,970 --> 00:02:07,270 using fluctuations in gravity 35 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:11,520 and he wondered if he could take it even further. 36 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:14,820 Could he use gravity to levitate a plane? 37 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:19,290 Of course, it was impossible. 38 00:02:19,290 --> 00:02:22,590 But Ron did something a bit reckless. 39 00:02:22,590 --> 00:02:26,490 He asked his employer if they'd let him try. 40 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:28,830 Ron's employer was the biggest defense 41 00:02:28,830 --> 00:02:33,130 and aerospace contractor in Europe: Bae systems. 42 00:02:36,540 --> 00:02:39,880 And, instead of telling him to have a cup of tea and a nap, 43 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:41,850 they listened. 44 00:02:41,850 --> 00:02:45,580 I had to go to the head of the technology board... 45 00:02:45,580 --> 00:02:46,780 it's a panel... 46 00:02:46,780 --> 00:02:50,050 and persuade them that it was worth doing. 47 00:02:50,050 --> 00:02:53,150 Now, clearly, it was very speculative. 48 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:54,890 I had to go away 49 00:02:54,890 --> 00:02:57,790 and come up with some concepts and come up with some ideas 50 00:02:57,790 --> 00:03:00,460 that could actually feature an antigravity 51 00:03:00,460 --> 00:03:03,660 or a gravity-type propulsion system. 52 00:03:03,670 --> 00:03:06,900 Well, this is one of the designs that we came up with. 53 00:03:06,900 --> 00:03:08,130 For start, it wouldn't be limited 54 00:03:08,140 --> 00:03:09,440 to just flying in the air. 55 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:14,040 It could fly anywhere, into space, even into water. 56 00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:17,110 And, of course, it was a vertical takeoff design 57 00:03:17,110 --> 00:03:19,310 because it had a gravity engine inside. 58 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:21,450 But it didn't look very exciting 59 00:03:21,450 --> 00:03:23,650 and so we asked the artist 60 00:03:23,650 --> 00:03:26,250 to put some green rays underneath. 61 00:03:26,260 --> 00:03:29,490 That made it look far more futuristic. 62 00:03:29,490 --> 00:03:30,950 Let's be clear 63 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,190 that not everyone in the company thought we should be doing it. 64 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,470 There were quite a few that felt "we make aircraft. 65 00:03:37,470 --> 00:03:39,710 We're good at it and that's what we should be doing." 66 00:03:39,710 --> 00:03:41,360 But there were a few, 67 00:03:41,370 --> 00:03:44,330 and some very senior people, that felt, "okay." 68 00:03:44,340 --> 00:03:47,600 Let's just have a little look at the future" 69 00:03:47,610 --> 00:03:51,070 and the concept became known as Greenglow. 70 00:03:56,190 --> 00:03:58,220 As head of Project Greenglow, 71 00:03:58,220 --> 00:04:00,880 Ron's job was to find and develop 72 00:04:00,890 --> 00:04:04,830 advanced propulsion systems to overcome gravity. 73 00:04:04,830 --> 00:04:07,600 The potential was enormous, if it happened. 74 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:11,330 It would totally change aerospace. 75 00:04:11,330 --> 00:04:13,300 And Ron was not alone. 76 00:04:18,940 --> 00:04:21,570 At around the same time, in the U.S., 77 00:04:21,580 --> 00:04:24,180 NASA began a parallel project, 78 00:04:24,180 --> 00:04:28,450 headed by aerospace engineer Marc Millis. 79 00:04:28,450 --> 00:04:31,850 It was around 1996 when I was asked 80 00:04:31,860 --> 00:04:34,790 to lead the breakthrough propulsion physics project. 81 00:04:34,790 --> 00:04:38,390 Things like nonrocket space drives, 82 00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:40,800 interstellar propulsion, 83 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:43,570 and manipulating gravity, things like that. 84 00:04:43,570 --> 00:04:49,070 For that project, the idea was to think radical, think big. 85 00:04:49,070 --> 00:04:51,830 Today, NASA says it has moved on 86 00:04:51,840 --> 00:04:53,640 and doesn't want to look back. 87 00:04:55,950 --> 00:04:58,180 We can't go in there to talk about it now 88 00:04:58,180 --> 00:05:00,480 because NASA's not doing that work right now. 89 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:11,590 At bae systems, the same situation: 90 00:05:11,590 --> 00:05:16,190 The company no longer wants to discuss Project Greenglow. 91 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:19,400 We asked whether we could go there and talk to them about it 92 00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:20,760 and they just said no. 93 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:27,940 Gravity control is a dark and dangerous science, 94 00:05:27,940 --> 00:05:33,040 but, like modern-day alchemy, it promises a glittering prize. 95 00:05:33,050 --> 00:05:35,150 But it can destroy your reputation. 96 00:05:41,060 --> 00:05:44,330 Years earlier, Ron had watched a gravity experiment 97 00:05:44,330 --> 00:05:48,100 bring down one of britain's best-known scientists... 98 00:05:48,100 --> 00:05:50,900 this time, I call for a volunteer. 99 00:05:50,900 --> 00:05:54,040 Professor of engineering at imperial college London 100 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:56,110 Eric Laithwaite. 101 00:05:56,110 --> 00:05:57,510 And then, we're gonna SPiN up 102 00:05:57,510 --> 00:06:00,345 the biggest gyro of the day, which is here. 103 00:06:00,346 --> 00:06:03,440 Like millions of others, Ron had been spellbound 104 00:06:03,450 --> 00:06:04,950 by Laithwaite's Christmas lecture 105 00:06:04,950 --> 00:06:08,420 at the royal institution in 1974. 106 00:06:08,420 --> 00:06:09,860 I can make him raise it. 107 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:13,750 Now... 108 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:17,000 Laithwaite suggested that, by spinning a heavy wheel, 109 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:20,220 you could make it counteract gravity. 110 00:06:20,230 --> 00:06:22,600 Ron has returned to the royal institution 111 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:24,800 to try and recreate the effect. 112 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:27,930 - Does it feel light? - It does. It feels very light. 113 00:06:27,940 --> 00:06:29,410 With the help of fellow engineer 114 00:06:29,410 --> 00:06:30,640 Dr. Adam Wojciech. 115 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:32,580 If I slow down, it feels... 116 00:06:32,580 --> 00:06:34,980 what I think was at the back of Laithwaite's mind 117 00:06:34,980 --> 00:06:36,550 was that there was a force 118 00:06:36,550 --> 00:06:39,080 in one direction more than in the other 119 00:06:39,080 --> 00:06:42,640 and so the gyro will start to rise up 120 00:06:42,650 --> 00:06:46,180 and that gives you the illusion as though it's losing weight. 121 00:06:46,190 --> 00:06:47,620 It isn't. 122 00:06:47,620 --> 00:06:50,120 It's just an illusion. 123 00:06:50,130 --> 00:06:52,800 It isn't light. 124 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:55,600 When a gyroscope is rotated in the same direction 125 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,900 it's spinning, it's given an upward lift. 126 00:07:00,900 --> 00:07:04,170 And if I rotate in the opposite sense. 127 00:07:04,170 --> 00:07:05,400 Ohhh, that does look heavy. 128 00:07:05,410 --> 00:07:07,345 Oh, careful, careful, careful. Wow. 129 00:07:07,346 --> 00:07:10,270 When it's rotated in the opposite direction, 130 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:15,320 the opposite happens and it seems to get heavier. 131 00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:17,490 Still hoping to make gravity control 132 00:07:17,490 --> 00:07:19,520 a subject of serious research, 133 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:23,220 Laithwaite acknowledged his mistake. 134 00:07:23,230 --> 00:07:26,730 Yet, his reputation was permanently damaged. 135 00:07:26,730 --> 00:07:30,100 He was snubbed by the academic establishment. 136 00:07:30,100 --> 00:07:33,240 And felt compelled to leave his position 137 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:35,770 at the royal institution. 138 00:07:35,770 --> 00:07:38,400 Professor Laithwaite got into a lot of trouble 139 00:07:38,410 --> 00:07:41,010 with this, really, because of the claim 140 00:07:41,010 --> 00:07:44,680 that it got lighter, which is antigravity, 141 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:48,080 and academics jump on any antigravity device 142 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,380 as being impossible! 143 00:07:50,390 --> 00:07:51,920 Well, it's not impossible. 144 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:54,720 It's just we don't know how to do it. 145 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:56,420 But we should look. 146 00:07:56,430 --> 00:07:58,660 It's like flight in the last century. 147 00:07:58,660 --> 00:08:01,390 In those days, anybody that said they could fly 148 00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:03,970 was looked upon as a lunatic! 149 00:08:09,370 --> 00:08:12,300 The difference is that, before humans could fly, 150 00:08:12,310 --> 00:08:14,510 we knew birds could. 151 00:08:14,510 --> 00:08:18,540 We could study aerodynamics. 152 00:08:18,550 --> 00:08:20,390 But there was nothing we knew of 153 00:08:20,390 --> 00:08:23,580 that could actually overcome gravity. 154 00:08:35,140 --> 00:08:37,840 The dream of lifting effortlessly from the earth 155 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:40,640 is not confined to engineers. 156 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:42,800 Despite being so contentious, 157 00:08:42,810 --> 00:08:47,650 many academics are rather seduced by the idea. 158 00:08:47,650 --> 00:08:51,250 Dr. Tamara Davis is among them. 159 00:08:51,250 --> 00:08:53,610 From a little kid, I always wanted to go 160 00:08:53,620 --> 00:08:56,220 and visit other planets and go up into space 161 00:08:56,220 --> 00:08:58,020 and to be able to have a form of propulsion 162 00:08:58,030 --> 00:09:01,200 that could get me there easily would be fantastic. 163 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:05,100 But we don't yet know whether we can manipulate gravity 164 00:09:05,100 --> 00:09:08,470 or have any control over it. 165 00:09:08,470 --> 00:09:10,440 There is one, fundamental force 166 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:11,770 we know we can control, 167 00:09:11,770 --> 00:09:15,470 which we've used to build our modern world: 168 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,180 Electromagnetism. 169 00:09:19,650 --> 00:09:23,750 It gives us a tantalizing illusion of gravity control 170 00:09:23,750 --> 00:09:25,180 when we levitate a magnet. 171 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:30,380 Ta-da! 172 00:09:30,390 --> 00:09:32,490 Electromagnetic propulsion 173 00:09:32,490 --> 00:09:34,690 balances the weight of the magnet 174 00:09:34,700 --> 00:09:38,930 by using the same magnetic polarity in the base. 175 00:09:38,930 --> 00:09:41,490 We know that like charges repel, 176 00:09:41,500 --> 00:09:44,200 so, here, we just have a magnetic field 177 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:46,270 that's levitating a magnet. 178 00:09:46,270 --> 00:09:47,700 So this is nothing mysterious. 179 00:09:47,710 --> 00:09:50,010 This is just electromagnetism. 180 00:09:50,010 --> 00:09:51,370 Let's see if I can get this across. 181 00:09:53,050 --> 00:09:56,890 Ah. 182 00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:01,420 The power of control we get from electromagnetism 183 00:10:01,420 --> 00:10:04,620 lies in the fact that we can change its polarity 184 00:10:04,630 --> 00:10:08,760 and make it either repel or attract. 185 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,960 So, in electromagnetism, we have positive charges 186 00:10:11,970 --> 00:10:15,940 and negative charges and they tend to attract each other. 187 00:10:18,870 --> 00:10:21,530 If you have a positive charge and a positive charge, 188 00:10:21,540 --> 00:10:25,610 it will repel from each other, but wouldn't it be great 189 00:10:25,610 --> 00:10:28,810 if we could get gravity to where it can reverse 190 00:10:28,820 --> 00:10:32,190 and be able to levitate things using gravity? 191 00:10:32,190 --> 00:10:36,420 Only problem is there isn't any negative gravity. 192 00:10:36,420 --> 00:10:39,090 There isn't any antigravity that pushes. 193 00:10:39,090 --> 00:10:41,920 Gravity always pulls, as far as we now. 194 00:10:45,430 --> 00:10:49,100 The reason seems to be that, unlike electromagnetism, 195 00:10:49,100 --> 00:10:52,800 gravity has only kind of polarity: 196 00:10:52,810 --> 00:10:54,880 Positive. 197 00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:57,750 One mass is simply attracted to another. 198 00:11:00,450 --> 00:11:04,990 Gravity and electromagnetism are completely different forces. 199 00:11:04,990 --> 00:11:07,620 There's a very special property of gravity. 200 00:11:07,620 --> 00:11:09,750 That is that it adds up. 201 00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:14,460 Inside an atom, there's a positive nucleus 202 00:11:14,460 --> 00:11:18,460 surrounded by negative electrons. 203 00:11:18,470 --> 00:11:22,500 So the electromagnetic value cancels out, 204 00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:25,330 whereas, there's nothing to cancel out its mass. 205 00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:29,970 So the force on one atom 206 00:11:29,980 --> 00:11:31,980 adds to the force on another atom 207 00:11:31,980 --> 00:11:36,150 and so they generate an attractive gravitational force, 208 00:11:36,150 --> 00:11:39,160 so, if you get enough of those atoms together, 209 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:41,710 like in a planet or in a star, 210 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:46,920 then the gravitational force is very strong. 211 00:11:46,930 --> 00:11:48,830 So, gravity is different. 212 00:11:48,830 --> 00:11:51,270 It adds up as you increase the amount of matter, 213 00:11:51,270 --> 00:11:54,200 in a way the other forces don't. 214 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:08,510 In 1996, a Russian scientist working in Finland 215 00:12:08,520 --> 00:12:10,550 claimed to have done the very thing 216 00:12:10,550 --> 00:12:14,380 the skeptics said was impossible: 217 00:12:14,390 --> 00:12:16,160 Control gravity. 218 00:12:19,460 --> 00:12:21,300 Dr. Eugene Podkletnov 219 00:12:21,300 --> 00:12:24,360 had been using a machine called a cryostat 220 00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:27,030 to cool electrical superconductors 221 00:12:27,030 --> 00:12:30,300 when something very strange happened. 222 00:12:30,300 --> 00:12:33,500 One evening, we were working with our cryostat 223 00:12:33,510 --> 00:12:37,750 and one of my colleagues, who was leaving at that time, 224 00:12:37,750 --> 00:12:39,850 just came to the laboratory and said, 225 00:12:39,850 --> 00:12:44,490 "guys, what are you doing here?" And we said, "just working." 226 00:12:44,490 --> 00:12:46,090 And he was smoking his pipe. 227 00:12:46,090 --> 00:12:47,920 A very interesting person. 228 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:51,080 It is, by the way, not allowed, to smoke a pipe 229 00:12:51,090 --> 00:12:55,420 in the laboratory, but it was late in the evening. 230 00:12:55,430 --> 00:12:59,330 And he blew his pipe over the cryostat 231 00:12:59,330 --> 00:13:02,760 and the smoke went close to the cryostat, 232 00:13:02,770 --> 00:13:09,380 hit some unseen barrier, and, very fast, went up. 233 00:13:09,380 --> 00:13:12,150 And it was pretty amazing. 234 00:13:12,150 --> 00:13:14,050 He repeated this several times 235 00:13:14,050 --> 00:13:18,990 and said, "you are working with magic things" and he left. 236 00:13:18,990 --> 00:13:22,060 So that was the beginning. 237 00:13:22,060 --> 00:13:23,930 After months of investigation, 238 00:13:23,930 --> 00:13:27,390 Podkletnov concluded that what he'd created was 239 00:13:27,390 --> 00:13:29,920 an antigravity field. 240 00:13:29,930 --> 00:13:34,000 So we have a vacuum chamber with a disc 241 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,960 which can be rotated over 10,000 rotations per minute. 242 00:13:37,970 --> 00:13:40,600 And this is a weight sample 243 00:13:40,610 --> 00:13:44,440 which can move freely over the disc. 244 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,510 And when the disc reaches a certain speed of rotation, 245 00:13:47,510 --> 00:13:52,010 it exerts a repulsive force on the weight sample 246 00:13:52,020 --> 00:13:55,160 and pushes it up. 247 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:57,930 In fact, this is a direct demonstration 248 00:13:57,930 --> 00:13:59,490 of the gravity field. 249 00:13:59,490 --> 00:14:04,320 This gravity field is, in our case, repulsive 250 00:14:04,330 --> 00:14:05,860 and, as you can see, 251 00:14:05,870 --> 00:14:09,400 the repulsive force is pretty big. 252 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:10,930 Hearing about the experiment, 253 00:14:10,940 --> 00:14:13,670 Ron Evans organized a team at Greenglow 254 00:14:13,670 --> 00:14:16,870 to try to recreate Podkletnov's breakthrough. 255 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:18,280 But they didn't have the budget 256 00:14:18,280 --> 00:14:21,520 to work with the highly specialized superconductor. 257 00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:23,920 We couldn't replicate what he'd done, 258 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:26,660 so we couldn't say, yes, he had found it, in effect; 259 00:14:26,660 --> 00:14:28,280 or no, he hadn't. 260 00:14:33,430 --> 00:14:36,830 By now, Marc Millis at NASA also wanted to know 261 00:14:36,830 --> 00:14:39,570 if there was something in Podkletnov's claim 262 00:14:39,570 --> 00:14:42,240 and he had a much bigger budget. 263 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,170 We found people who replicated the experiment 264 00:14:45,170 --> 00:14:49,370 with Podkletnov's help and they even had 50 times 265 00:14:49,380 --> 00:14:52,650 the detection sensitivity that Podkletnov had had, 266 00:14:52,650 --> 00:14:57,250 and did not find any effect. 267 00:14:57,250 --> 00:14:59,980 Despite exhaustive tests, 268 00:14:59,990 --> 00:15:01,520 no one seemed able to reproduce 269 00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:04,780 Podkletnov's so-called gravity field. 270 00:15:04,790 --> 00:15:07,250 I think Podkletnov had jumped to a conclusion, 271 00:15:07,260 --> 00:15:08,720 had seen some things, 272 00:15:08,730 --> 00:15:12,900 and did not take the rigor to go through and make sure 273 00:15:12,900 --> 00:15:16,740 that he wasn't misleading himself. 274 00:15:16,740 --> 00:15:19,380 Meanwhile, news of Podkletnov's breakthrough 275 00:15:19,380 --> 00:15:24,000 had been leaked to the press and the resulting media storm 276 00:15:24,010 --> 00:15:27,640 ultimately forced him to leave his university position. 277 00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:34,650 So Podkletnov went back to Moscow, to work in secret 278 00:15:34,660 --> 00:15:37,490 and, by late 2001, he had claimed 279 00:15:37,490 --> 00:15:42,150 he had a new way to manipulate gravity. 280 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:45,620 Wary of the western media, he contacted the one man 281 00:15:45,630 --> 00:15:48,660 he trusted to give him a fair hearing: 282 00:15:48,670 --> 00:15:52,610 Ron Evans, at Greenglow. 283 00:15:52,610 --> 00:15:54,380 Because of his security conCERNs, 284 00:15:54,380 --> 00:15:59,710 Podkletnov was only prepared to tell Ron the basic concept. 285 00:15:59,710 --> 00:16:01,470 I presented to him 286 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:05,950 my latest works with impulse gravity generator, 287 00:16:05,950 --> 00:16:11,050 which gives a very sharp impulse of gravity waves. 288 00:16:11,060 --> 00:16:13,890 It's really a giant spark plug, really, 289 00:16:13,890 --> 00:16:15,960 but, according to Dr. Podkletnov, 290 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:19,630 someone way away, a kilometer away, 291 00:16:19,630 --> 00:16:23,500 on the balcony of some flats in line with the beam, 292 00:16:23,500 --> 00:16:28,400 were still able to detect a slight effect. 293 00:16:28,410 --> 00:16:30,350 That was incredible. 294 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:40,540 For years, the gravity pulse concept 295 00:16:40,540 --> 00:16:44,610 remained shrouded in secrecy and stayed unproven. 296 00:16:46,850 --> 00:16:50,720 But, by the early 2000s, a new generation of scientists 297 00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:55,760 had picked up the Baton from Project Greenglow, 298 00:16:55,760 --> 00:16:58,230 including Dr. Martin Tajmar, 299 00:16:58,230 --> 00:17:03,100 professor of space systems at Dresden university. 300 00:17:03,100 --> 00:17:05,170 If you look for a challenge, 301 00:17:05,170 --> 00:17:08,100 always look for a big challenge. 302 00:17:08,100 --> 00:17:11,670 The ultimate challenge I can think of as a scientist 303 00:17:11,670 --> 00:17:13,070 is to control gravity. 304 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,850 That's maybe the most difficult thing there is, right? 305 00:17:16,850 --> 00:17:19,450 Martin is about to comprehensively test 306 00:17:19,450 --> 00:17:22,790 Podkletnov's concept, once and for all. 307 00:17:22,790 --> 00:17:25,890 His claims are that they can drill holes 308 00:17:25,890 --> 00:17:27,960 into brick walls and this kind of stuff, 309 00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:30,190 which is an extraordinary claim. 310 00:17:30,190 --> 00:17:32,020 And, if you have an extraordinary claim, 311 00:17:32,030 --> 00:17:34,630 you must have extraordinary proof. 312 00:17:34,630 --> 00:17:38,530 Antigravity is a kind of synonym for the impossible. 313 00:17:38,530 --> 00:17:42,160 But always be ready for the surprise. 314 00:17:42,170 --> 00:17:43,660 This, in effect, 315 00:17:43,670 --> 00:17:46,770 is Podkletnov's gravity pulse generator, 316 00:17:46,780 --> 00:17:49,910 recreated by Martin and his team. 317 00:17:49,910 --> 00:17:52,770 As Ron Evans guessed, it's based in a kind of 318 00:17:52,780 --> 00:17:57,810 giant spark plug; Essentially, two electrodes in a box. 319 00:17:57,820 --> 00:17:59,620 Basically, you have two electrodes, 320 00:17:59,620 --> 00:18:02,550 one here and one here 321 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,360 and you're running a very, very high 322 00:18:06,360 --> 00:18:10,890 electric current discharge through that. 323 00:18:10,900 --> 00:18:15,400 This discharge goes through a superconductor. 324 00:18:15,400 --> 00:18:16,930 According to Podkletnov, 325 00:18:16,940 --> 00:18:20,980 this somehow creates a pulse of gravity which is picked up 326 00:18:20,980 --> 00:18:26,520 by a sensor acting like an electronic pendulum. 327 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:29,350 And let's say if you have your pendulum here, 328 00:18:29,350 --> 00:18:33,850 that, when this gravitational impulse hits the pendulum, 329 00:18:33,860 --> 00:18:36,590 you will actually get a deflection of the pendulum. 330 00:18:36,590 --> 00:18:40,790 And so the claim is that this is actually also creating 331 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:42,600 not only an electric discharge, 332 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:45,370 but a kind of a gravitational impulse, 333 00:18:45,370 --> 00:18:48,310 a push to something at a distance. 334 00:18:57,980 --> 00:19:00,680 The superconductor is cooled with liquid nitrogen 335 00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:03,440 to remove its electrical resistance. 336 00:19:05,950 --> 00:19:09,980 Podkletnov claimed the resulting massive electrical discharge 337 00:19:09,990 --> 00:19:12,750 creates the gravitational pulse. 338 00:19:15,830 --> 00:19:20,560 They switch on the power to charge up the system 339 00:19:20,570 --> 00:19:22,940 and wait for the discharge. 340 00:19:25,540 --> 00:19:28,310 Counting down. 341 00:19:37,990 --> 00:19:40,120 There is a reading. 342 00:19:42,620 --> 00:19:44,750 So here's the data. 343 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:46,630 Gravity goes with the speed of light, 344 00:19:46,630 --> 00:19:49,000 so you should see an instantaneous peak 345 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:51,430 and then the sound from this bang, 346 00:19:51,430 --> 00:19:53,130 this takes some time until it arrives, 347 00:19:53,140 --> 00:19:55,205 so we should see two distinct peaks 348 00:19:55,206 --> 00:19:57,500 because we have such a high time resolution. 349 00:19:57,510 --> 00:20:00,910 So that's the acoustic impulse and exactly here, 350 00:20:00,910 --> 00:20:03,080 that's where the gravitational impulse should be, 351 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:05,450 where we don't see it. 352 00:20:05,450 --> 00:20:09,420 The sensor felt the sound wave from the spark, 353 00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:12,090 but no gravity pulse. 354 00:20:12,090 --> 00:20:15,690 That's the most sensitive sensor there is in the world 355 00:20:15,690 --> 00:20:18,790 and we don't even see something out of the noise, 356 00:20:18,790 --> 00:20:21,760 so how can he make a claim to say that it moved things 357 00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:24,760 meters away or that it actually pushed pendulums away? 358 00:20:24,770 --> 00:20:26,900 So that's a really outrageous claim. 359 00:20:26,900 --> 00:20:31,000 We haven't seen something not even remotely like that, so. 360 00:20:31,010 --> 00:20:36,680 Unfortunately, but, yeah, so far, no luck. 361 00:20:39,010 --> 00:20:40,840 None of Podkletnov's methods 362 00:20:40,850 --> 00:20:44,420 seem to be able to alter gravity in the lab. 363 00:20:44,420 --> 00:20:48,590 Could the reason be a simple problem of scale? 364 00:20:52,530 --> 00:20:53,860 There is one industry 365 00:20:53,860 --> 00:20:57,420 that has to deal with gravity on a planetary scale: 366 00:20:57,430 --> 00:20:59,530 The space business. 367 00:20:59,530 --> 00:21:01,930 They're always clamoring for some form 368 00:21:01,940 --> 00:21:04,210 of gravity-beating propulsion. 369 00:21:15,180 --> 00:21:19,780 Marc Millis ran NASA's breakthrough propulsion project. 370 00:21:19,790 --> 00:21:25,830 One of its long-term goals was to move away from using rockets. 371 00:21:25,830 --> 00:21:29,670 The problem with rockets is not that they can't beat gravity. 372 00:21:29,670 --> 00:21:33,360 It's the amount of thrust they need to do it. 373 00:21:33,370 --> 00:21:35,870 If you think about the Apollo spacecraft 374 00:21:35,870 --> 00:21:39,270 and you imagine here's saturn 5, 375 00:21:39,270 --> 00:21:42,170 the very tip of that and then a little bit below that 376 00:21:42,180 --> 00:21:44,010 was the actual spacecraft, itself, 377 00:21:44,010 --> 00:21:47,170 and all the rest of this was the propellant, 378 00:21:47,180 --> 00:21:50,840 the rocket fuel, and that's just to the moon. 379 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:57,660 NASA plans to get humans to Mars and back 380 00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:00,460 within the next 15 years 381 00:22:00,460 --> 00:22:05,430 and, maybe one day, beyond the solar system, itself. 382 00:22:05,430 --> 00:22:06,990 But just the martian step 383 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,900 seems impractical with conventional rockets 384 00:22:09,910 --> 00:22:13,480 because leaving the earth's gravity takes some much fuel. 385 00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,280 The farther or faster that you wanna go, 386 00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:17,580 or more that you wanna carry, 387 00:22:17,580 --> 00:22:20,350 you need this extra propellant to do that and then, 388 00:22:20,350 --> 00:22:22,750 you need extra propellant for the extra propellant 389 00:22:22,750 --> 00:22:26,180 and it adds up exponentially. 390 00:22:26,190 --> 00:22:29,025 If you wanted to go to our nearest neighboring star, 391 00:22:29,026 --> 00:22:30,850 which is over 4 light-years away, 392 00:22:30,860 --> 00:22:32,860 and you wanted to do it with the kind of rockets 393 00:22:32,860 --> 00:22:34,290 that are on the space shuttle, 394 00:22:34,300 --> 00:22:36,265 and say you wanna do it in 50 years, 395 00:22:36,266 --> 00:22:38,760 you're having to go 1/10 of the speed of light. 396 00:22:38,770 --> 00:22:41,040 Well, the amount of propellant you need for that journey is 397 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,810 about the mass of our entire sun. 398 00:22:52,410 --> 00:22:54,110 For Marc Millis and NASA, 399 00:22:54,110 --> 00:22:57,080 the focus was less on controlling gravity, itself, 400 00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:00,610 than finding ways to get to the stars. 401 00:23:00,610 --> 00:23:02,770 They didn't care how long, 402 00:23:02,780 --> 00:23:05,040 as long as it didn't need rocket fuel. 403 00:23:09,260 --> 00:23:12,860 Then in 2002, a new device appeared 404 00:23:12,860 --> 00:23:15,060 that seemed to offer a solution. 405 00:23:23,100 --> 00:23:26,160 Invented by a former defense research engineer, 406 00:23:26,170 --> 00:23:28,100 Roger shawyer. 407 00:23:28,110 --> 00:23:31,810 The big advantage of emdrive is that it's a device 408 00:23:31,810 --> 00:23:36,110 which creates a force, but it doesn't have to 409 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:40,020 shoot out a propellant out of the back. 410 00:23:40,020 --> 00:23:42,920 Instead of using rocket fuel to create thrust, 411 00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:47,020 the emdrive uses microwave energy, 412 00:23:47,030 --> 00:23:50,830 just like a domestic oven. 413 00:23:50,830 --> 00:23:53,740 Microwaves bounce around inside the box in waves, 414 00:23:53,740 --> 00:23:55,930 cooking your food. 415 00:23:55,940 --> 00:23:58,540 To stop that energy cooking you, 416 00:23:58,540 --> 00:24:01,810 there is a mesh on the door with holes in it. 417 00:24:01,810 --> 00:24:05,350 The diameter of these holes are so small that, 418 00:24:05,350 --> 00:24:08,050 instead of going through it, microwave radiation 419 00:24:08,050 --> 00:24:12,520 is actually bouncing up and down vertically in the hole. 420 00:24:14,590 --> 00:24:16,420 The holes trap the waves, 421 00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:20,450 slowing them to a standstill. 422 00:24:20,460 --> 00:24:21,860 According to Roger, 423 00:24:21,860 --> 00:24:26,390 the narrow end of his emdrive does exactly the same job. 424 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,470 The waves are going faster at the large end 425 00:24:29,470 --> 00:24:32,010 than they are at the small end. 426 00:24:32,010 --> 00:24:35,280 This means that the force at the large end 427 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,310 is greater than the force at the small end, 428 00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:42,640 which will cause the cavity to move in the opposite direction. 429 00:24:45,490 --> 00:24:48,290 It would only produce a small amount of thrust, 430 00:24:48,290 --> 00:24:51,260 but, in space, that wouldn't matter. 431 00:24:51,260 --> 00:24:54,760 An emdrive thruster with continuous electrical power 432 00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,020 gives you continuous acceleration 433 00:24:57,030 --> 00:24:58,570 and therefore, you can achieve 434 00:24:58,570 --> 00:25:00,070 very large velocities 435 00:25:00,070 --> 00:25:03,500 and travel very large distances. 436 00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:07,000 Roger believes that, if he could make it big enough, 437 00:25:07,010 --> 00:25:10,240 it could potentially lift us from the earth. 438 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,070 You suddenly have a lift engine 439 00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:13,615 which simply hovers there 440 00:25:13,616 --> 00:25:15,840 or, indeed, accelerates upwards, 441 00:25:15,850 --> 00:25:18,050 so, we can obviously envisage 442 00:25:18,050 --> 00:25:21,010 launching large payloads into space 443 00:25:21,020 --> 00:25:24,520 on a emdrive-driven space plane. 444 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,320 Essentially, we are no longer looking at ways 445 00:25:27,330 --> 00:25:29,600 that we can control gravity, itself. 446 00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,830 We are beating gravity the smart way. 447 00:25:33,830 --> 00:25:37,060 If it works. 448 00:25:37,070 --> 00:25:39,610 Though he didn't claim to control gravity, 449 00:25:39,610 --> 00:25:41,740 Roger's emdrive concept 450 00:25:41,740 --> 00:25:45,870 was rejected by a lot of theoretical scientists, 451 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,180 who claimed the basic physics just didn't add up. 452 00:25:55,620 --> 00:25:59,280 To settle the argument between the theorists and engineers, 453 00:25:59,290 --> 00:26:03,490 Martin Tajmar had the perfect test facility in Dresden. 454 00:26:06,570 --> 00:26:09,770 A large vacuum chamber mounted on dampers, 455 00:26:09,770 --> 00:26:13,610 to isolate it from the surrounding world, 456 00:26:13,610 --> 00:26:18,480 a carefully designed rig to hold the drive 457 00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,950 with a finely tuned balance to record any thrust... 458 00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:25,940 And, most importantly, 459 00:26:25,950 --> 00:26:30,050 a copy of Roger shawyer's original emdrive. 460 00:26:30,060 --> 00:26:34,130 Martin's version is small, but, if the principal works, 461 00:26:34,130 --> 00:26:36,260 there should be measurable thrust. 462 00:26:40,300 --> 00:26:42,340 The vacuum chamber is sealed. 463 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,910 The thrust recorder inside is so sensitive, 464 00:26:48,910 --> 00:26:51,910 it can detect Martin sitting down outside. 465 00:26:54,780 --> 00:26:56,440 We're here in a laboratory on earth, 466 00:26:56,450 --> 00:26:58,420 so there's some seismic movement. 467 00:26:58,420 --> 00:27:01,690 So the balance itself will move just a little bit. 468 00:27:01,690 --> 00:27:03,460 That's the noise we are seeing here. 469 00:27:07,290 --> 00:27:08,990 The emdrive is switched on. 470 00:27:12,700 --> 00:27:14,400 Nothing appears to move. 471 00:27:17,470 --> 00:27:21,370 But, on Martin's screen, there is a reading. 472 00:27:21,370 --> 00:27:24,700 When we turn on the thruster, the balance, indeed, reacts 473 00:27:24,710 --> 00:27:27,940 and we measure something which looks actually like a thrust. 474 00:27:27,950 --> 00:27:29,350 What we are measuring here in this case 475 00:27:29,350 --> 00:27:32,120 is of like 25 micronewtons. 476 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:34,150 That's very, very small. 477 00:27:34,150 --> 00:27:35,710 You can compare this, for example, 478 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,020 to 1/10 of the weight force 479 00:27:39,030 --> 00:27:41,860 of a grain of rice, Incredibly small. 480 00:27:41,860 --> 00:27:44,020 Still, however, useful, for example. 481 00:27:44,030 --> 00:27:46,270 In space, we have thrusters, actually, 482 00:27:46,270 --> 00:27:48,900 which have this tiny amount of force, 483 00:27:48,900 --> 00:27:51,000 which is still useful to maneuver spacecraft, 484 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,400 for instance. 485 00:27:54,410 --> 00:27:58,650 The first results seem positive. 486 00:27:58,650 --> 00:28:01,150 But, when Martin experimented further, 487 00:28:01,150 --> 00:28:03,580 he discovered a problem. 488 00:28:03,580 --> 00:28:06,140 So, with the thruster pointing in that direction, 489 00:28:06,150 --> 00:28:07,910 we measured thrust in that direction 490 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,060 and, when we tilted it 90°, however, 491 00:28:11,060 --> 00:28:13,030 we still measured thrust in this direction, 492 00:28:13,030 --> 00:28:15,800 which we shouldn't have. 493 00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:19,070 There can still be some major influence from, 494 00:28:19,070 --> 00:28:21,035 for example, the power-feeding lines 495 00:28:21,036 --> 00:28:23,090 that we still need to solve, to find out 496 00:28:23,100 --> 00:28:25,960 what's the real thrust produced by the emdrive, 497 00:28:25,970 --> 00:28:28,570 if there is any thrust produced. 498 00:28:34,950 --> 00:28:37,450 The great hope of the emdrive was that, 499 00:28:37,450 --> 00:28:39,920 as a kind of propellantless rocket, 500 00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,030 it would at least power vehicles in space: NASA's dream. 501 00:28:47,630 --> 00:28:51,060 But NASA didn't pursue the idea any further, 502 00:28:51,060 --> 00:28:56,560 or any other gravity-defying concepts, because, in 2002, 503 00:28:56,570 --> 00:29:00,870 they discontinued Marc Millis's project. 504 00:29:00,870 --> 00:29:02,870 The project ended when the funding 505 00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,050 for all propulsion research was cut. 506 00:29:06,050 --> 00:29:08,280 It wasn't just breakthrough propulsion physics. 507 00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,780 It was a congressional earmark to build a building 508 00:29:11,780 --> 00:29:13,880 in a certain state and that took all the funding. 509 00:29:13,890 --> 00:29:16,590 It happens. 510 00:29:16,590 --> 00:29:20,930 Main progress that we made is we took science-fiction notions 511 00:29:20,930 --> 00:29:22,900 and evolved them to at least 512 00:29:22,900 --> 00:29:25,070 the first step of the scientific method. 513 00:29:25,070 --> 00:29:29,230 That step, by itself, is a degree of progress that, 514 00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:30,670 if I don't accomplish any more, 515 00:29:30,670 --> 00:29:32,210 it's like "yeah, that was pretty good." 516 00:29:44,820 --> 00:29:49,060 Ron Evans kept going for another 3 years. 517 00:29:49,060 --> 00:29:51,520 But, when he retired, in 2005, 518 00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,850 bae closed down Project Greenglow. 519 00:29:57,900 --> 00:30:00,030 Is it a shame? 520 00:30:00,030 --> 00:30:01,630 Yeah, I suppose so. 521 00:30:01,630 --> 00:30:06,300 I would like to have worked at a company 522 00:30:06,310 --> 00:30:10,140 that actually made this idea work. 523 00:30:10,140 --> 00:30:12,800 It was a lovely idea. 524 00:30:16,220 --> 00:30:17,780 When Greenglow ended, 525 00:30:17,780 --> 00:30:21,580 the hope of mastering gravity seemed to end with it. 526 00:30:27,660 --> 00:30:29,700 If that was ever going to change, 527 00:30:29,700 --> 00:30:34,740 we needed to go much deeper into how gravity actually worked. 528 00:30:46,670 --> 00:30:48,640 Our understanding of gravity 529 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:53,080 has come down from Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, 530 00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,450 from observations rooted in the motions of the heavens. 531 00:31:02,250 --> 00:31:06,380 Now those same heavens seem to be showing us something 532 00:31:06,390 --> 00:31:09,830 that looks remarkably like antigravity. 533 00:31:12,860 --> 00:31:14,560 The idea that the universe 534 00:31:14,570 --> 00:31:19,840 has some inherent form of antigravity is tantalizing. 535 00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:24,380 If only we could get our hands on it. 536 00:31:24,380 --> 00:31:28,210 The problem is no one knows what this antigravity force 537 00:31:28,210 --> 00:31:33,940 actually is, only that it seems to originate from space, itself. 538 00:31:35,550 --> 00:31:38,110 Although we think of space as this emptiness, 539 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,150 the absence of stuff, it actually isn't. 540 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:42,830 There is something that's intrinsic 541 00:31:42,830 --> 00:31:48,030 to the nature of space that imparted an energy. 542 00:31:48,030 --> 00:31:50,490 And one of the big mysteries is 543 00:31:50,500 --> 00:31:52,230 where does that energy come from? 544 00:31:56,540 --> 00:31:59,110 A number of scientists think the answer 545 00:31:59,110 --> 00:32:02,880 to this big question could lie in the very small... 546 00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:09,220 the very, very, very small... world of subatomic particles: 547 00:32:09,220 --> 00:32:12,790 Quantum physics. 548 00:32:12,790 --> 00:32:14,760 According to current quantum theory, 549 00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:19,730 particles can spontaneously appear from nowhere. 550 00:32:19,730 --> 00:32:22,130 Apparently, they just pop into existence 551 00:32:22,130 --> 00:32:23,760 in the vacuum of space. 552 00:32:26,570 --> 00:32:30,340 Matter and antimatter, which, because they're opposites, 553 00:32:30,340 --> 00:32:32,770 cancel each other out in an instant. 554 00:32:35,150 --> 00:32:38,080 The lifetime is one-thousandth 555 00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:42,950 of one-billionth of one-billionth of a second. 556 00:32:42,950 --> 00:32:48,880 We are now in an ocean of particle/antiparticle pairs, 557 00:32:48,890 --> 00:32:51,690 permanently appearing and disappearing. 558 00:32:53,930 --> 00:32:55,690 Dr. Dragan Hajduković 559 00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:58,440 thinks something else happens to these particles 560 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,270 to produce an antigravity effect. 561 00:33:07,340 --> 00:33:10,010 For the briefest moment of their existence, 562 00:33:10,010 --> 00:33:14,440 these particles can be polarized, like iron filings. 563 00:33:14,450 --> 00:33:18,150 The trouble is to get it in a random orientation. 564 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,060 If there is a magnetic field, 565 00:33:21,060 --> 00:33:25,200 the random orientation will change. 566 00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:26,930 Yes. 567 00:33:29,230 --> 00:33:30,490 According to Dragan, 568 00:33:30,500 --> 00:33:35,600 in the same way iron filings respond to a magnet, 569 00:33:35,610 --> 00:33:38,880 pairs of quantum particles respond to mass. 570 00:33:41,580 --> 00:33:44,780 With matter and antimatter, pairs are briefly 571 00:33:44,780 --> 00:33:48,610 orienting themselves in relation to that mass. 572 00:33:48,620 --> 00:33:51,220 Matter is attracted to the positive mass 573 00:33:51,220 --> 00:33:57,750 of a planet or a star, while antimatter is repelled by it. 574 00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,920 Dragan believes this creates a halo of 575 00:34:00,930 --> 00:34:06,100 antigravity dark energy around every mass in the universe. 576 00:34:06,100 --> 00:34:10,570 All these halos together has negative pressure, 577 00:34:10,570 --> 00:34:16,040 what is exactly what we need, in cosmological equations, 578 00:34:16,050 --> 00:34:22,320 to produce the accelerated expansion of the universe. 579 00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,060 It means that there are both positive 580 00:34:25,060 --> 00:34:28,130 and negative gravitational charges. 581 00:34:28,130 --> 00:34:32,900 So far, we know that gravity's only attraction. 582 00:34:32,900 --> 00:34:36,530 It may be that gravity 583 00:34:36,530 --> 00:34:39,560 is also repulsion, but not between matter and matter, 584 00:34:39,570 --> 00:34:42,980 but between matter and antimatter. 585 00:34:46,140 --> 00:34:49,370 Dragan's theory, that the key to antigravity lies 586 00:34:49,380 --> 00:34:53,790 in antimatter, is actually going to be tested. 587 00:34:56,620 --> 00:34:59,620 Here, in the world's biggest physics lab, 588 00:34:59,620 --> 00:35:01,520 at CERN, in Switzerland, 589 00:35:04,130 --> 00:35:08,200 not in the famous large hadron collider, 590 00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:13,440 but in the improbably named antimatter factory, 591 00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,240 at its Alpha experiment. 592 00:35:19,310 --> 00:35:21,280 A team led by Jeffrey Hangst 593 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,180 is building a machine that, in a couple of years, 594 00:35:24,180 --> 00:35:28,310 will answer one of the biggest questions in gravity research: 595 00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:33,720 Does antimatter fall down or up? 596 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:35,180 Hi, Dragan. Hi. 597 00:35:35,190 --> 00:35:36,690 - Welcome to Alpha. - Good to see you again. 598 00:35:36,690 --> 00:35:39,690 Come on in. Let's take a look at this machine. 599 00:35:39,700 --> 00:35:42,770 Alpha is part of CERN's ongoing exploration 600 00:35:42,770 --> 00:35:44,700 into the nature of matter and gravity. 601 00:35:44,700 --> 00:35:46,400 So, right now, what we're doing is 602 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:48,230 we're routinely trapping antihydrogen. 603 00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:51,810 But, for Dragan Hajduković, it will be make or break. 604 00:35:51,810 --> 00:35:54,150 Trapping antihydrogen to prepare for the... 605 00:35:54,150 --> 00:35:57,670 if he's right, creating antigravity on earth 606 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,380 is at least a theoretical possibility. 607 00:36:06,660 --> 00:36:11,400 From Einstein's perspective, mass actually distorts 608 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,130 the fabric of space and time, or space-time, as it's called. 609 00:36:15,130 --> 00:36:17,960 That distortion is rather like a well. 610 00:36:21,510 --> 00:36:24,680 So here's another object that's moving nearby, 611 00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,880 our mass that has bent space-time 612 00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:33,780 and, as it goes past, it bends towards the massive object. 613 00:36:33,780 --> 00:36:37,250 But a negative mass would be, in our analogy here, 614 00:36:37,250 --> 00:36:40,080 something like a mound, instead of a depression. 615 00:36:40,090 --> 00:36:41,930 And then you run into problems. 616 00:36:44,090 --> 00:36:46,990 The problem, according to Einstein, 617 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,370 is that using a negative mass would mean inverting space-time, 618 00:36:51,370 --> 00:36:56,540 effectively turning the fabric of the universe inside-out. 619 00:36:56,540 --> 00:36:58,840 And what you end up with is something 620 00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,900 that's called a runaway problem. 621 00:37:01,910 --> 00:37:05,070 You have physics that is just running out of control. 622 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,410 It'll accelerate away arbitrarily 623 00:37:07,420 --> 00:37:11,220 with zero cost of energy and, if that were really 624 00:37:11,220 --> 00:37:12,720 happening anywhere in the universe, 625 00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:16,950 we'd see it spectacularly becoming an unstable situation. 626 00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,120 If Clifford Johnson 627 00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,820 and other theoretical physicists are right, 628 00:37:30,820 --> 00:37:35,320 antigravity propulsion will remain an unworkable dream. 629 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,880 It seems the laws of physics simply don't allow it. 630 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,700 At least, not as we understand those laws today. 631 00:37:47,570 --> 00:37:50,570 Because, just as Galileo gave way to Newton 632 00:37:50,570 --> 00:37:56,870 and Newton gave way to Einstein, theories do change. 633 00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,130 And, in the meantime, well, 634 00:38:11,130 --> 00:38:14,400 the engineers get on with doing what engineers do: 635 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,130 Building new kinds of propulsion. 636 00:38:18,130 --> 00:38:21,630 Today, that includes NASA. 637 00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,340 At the Glenn research laboratory in Ohio, 638 00:38:24,340 --> 00:38:29,180 work is underway to produce new forms of space engines, 639 00:38:29,180 --> 00:38:33,150 ones that really could take us where rockets can't: 640 00:38:33,150 --> 00:38:37,850 Beyond our solar system. 641 00:38:37,850 --> 00:38:41,780 What we have here is a high-powered ion thruster 642 00:38:41,790 --> 00:38:44,260 and the way it produces thrust are 643 00:38:44,260 --> 00:38:47,190 ions are created inside this ring 644 00:38:47,190 --> 00:38:49,860 and then, we establish electrostatic potential 645 00:38:49,860 --> 00:38:54,730 that accelerates these ions out and produces large velocities. 646 00:38:54,740 --> 00:38:56,010 And what that does is 647 00:38:56,010 --> 00:39:00,430 it gives us very efficient production of thrust. 648 00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,300 This is an ion thruster under test, 649 00:39:03,310 --> 00:39:07,750 pouring out a constant stream of charged particles. 650 00:39:07,750 --> 00:39:10,190 It's less powerful than a rocket, but capable 651 00:39:10,190 --> 00:39:16,220 of accelerating a spacecraft almost indefinitely. 652 00:39:16,220 --> 00:39:19,920 These systems are ideal for in space, you know. 653 00:39:19,930 --> 00:39:23,430 We operate them purely in space because it's very gentle. 654 00:39:23,430 --> 00:39:25,270 You know, the thrust level is low, 655 00:39:25,270 --> 00:39:29,040 but, over time, you can develop much higher velocities 656 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:30,940 than you can with chemical rockets. 657 00:39:34,370 --> 00:39:37,300 NASA's focus is on space propulsion 658 00:39:37,310 --> 00:39:42,040 beyond the earth's gravitation, 659 00:39:42,050 --> 00:39:44,120 yet there is a propulsion concept 660 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,790 that aims to revolutionize all of aerospace, 661 00:39:47,790 --> 00:39:51,090 resurrected from the days of Project Greenglow. 662 00:39:54,390 --> 00:39:58,220 10 years ago, Project Greenglow ended 663 00:39:58,230 --> 00:39:59,460 and Ron Evans thought 664 00:39:59,470 --> 00:40:03,900 officially gravity research had ended with it. 665 00:40:03,900 --> 00:40:05,730 But, today, he's been invited 666 00:40:05,740 --> 00:40:09,040 to witness a unique gravitational breakthrough. 667 00:40:12,510 --> 00:40:15,410 When Ron first began his gravity research, 668 00:40:15,420 --> 00:40:18,850 Could gravity be used 669 00:40:18,850 --> 00:40:24,050 to detect aircraft that were invisible to radar? 670 00:40:24,060 --> 00:40:26,830 In the 1980s, our complete inability 671 00:40:26,830 --> 00:40:30,760 to work with gravity made it impossible, 672 00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:35,790 but, today, Ron is meeting someone who says he's done it. 673 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,800 This time, there are no covert meetings. 674 00:40:38,810 --> 00:40:41,580 He's going inside england's ministry of defence 675 00:40:41,580 --> 00:40:44,310 research laboratory at porton down. 676 00:40:44,310 --> 00:40:45,540 Ron, good morning. 677 00:40:45,550 --> 00:40:47,580 Welcome to defence science and technology. 678 00:40:47,580 --> 00:40:50,380 Neil stansfield heads a department here 679 00:40:50,380 --> 00:40:53,980 that looks at what they call disruptive technology. 680 00:40:56,690 --> 00:40:58,230 And they've taken a potential step 681 00:40:58,230 --> 00:41:05,000 on the road to gravity control using quantum engineering. 682 00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:06,400 So what we have here is 683 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,940 our quantum gravity gradiometer. 684 00:41:08,940 --> 00:41:10,305 It's a small system. 685 00:41:10,306 --> 00:41:11,830 At the heart of the device, 686 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:13,740 we have a vacuum chamber. 687 00:41:13,740 --> 00:41:18,950 The sensor uses lasers to freeze a cloud of atoms. 688 00:41:18,950 --> 00:41:21,380 This cloud responds to disturbances 689 00:41:21,380 --> 00:41:23,710 in the earth's gravitational field 690 00:41:23,720 --> 00:41:26,820 caused by a moving mass. 691 00:41:26,820 --> 00:41:28,420 The atoms are sensitive enough 692 00:41:28,420 --> 00:41:30,280 to detect the mass of my body 693 00:41:30,290 --> 00:41:31,990 at a range of about 1 meter. 694 00:41:31,990 --> 00:41:34,420 So your gravitational field is affecting this device? 695 00:41:34,430 --> 00:41:36,530 Yes. 696 00:41:36,530 --> 00:41:38,370 This is the first time 697 00:41:38,370 --> 00:41:42,840 Ron has seen anyone actually using gravity. 698 00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:44,910 To me, this is amazing technology. 699 00:41:44,910 --> 00:41:47,440 Getting into the quantum, that's really allowing us 700 00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:48,800 to do things that 701 00:41:48,810 --> 00:41:50,745 were just unbelievable 30 years ago. 702 00:41:50,746 --> 00:41:52,300 Yes, some people use the phrase 703 00:41:52,310 --> 00:41:54,210 "they break the laws of physics." 704 00:41:54,210 --> 00:41:56,010 I prefer to say they break the laws of physics 705 00:41:56,020 --> 00:41:58,020 as we understand them today. 706 00:41:58,020 --> 00:41:59,050 A hundred years ago, 707 00:41:59,050 --> 00:42:00,850 we didn't understand the quantum physics. 708 00:42:00,850 --> 00:42:02,980 The idea of being able to measure changes 709 00:42:02,990 --> 00:42:05,030 in gravity? Science-fiction. 710 00:42:05,030 --> 00:42:06,830 Could never happen. Today, we can. 711 00:42:06,830 --> 00:42:07,960 Yes. 712 00:42:11,500 --> 00:42:14,840 Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! 713 00:42:16,940 --> 00:42:20,080 Ron Evans's mission to control gravity began here, 714 00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,400 in a cold, wet corner of lancashire, 715 00:42:23,410 --> 00:42:27,150 where people go to live their dreams, 716 00:42:27,150 --> 00:42:31,750 where no one ever worried about the word "impossible". 717 00:42:31,750 --> 00:42:34,280 Aaaaah! 718 00:42:34,290 --> 00:42:38,130 For Ron Evans, gravity control is just something 719 00:42:38,130 --> 00:42:40,630 we haven't learned to do. 720 00:42:40,630 --> 00:42:42,160 Yet. 721 00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:43,690 I'm sure we will, one day. 722 00:42:43,700 --> 00:42:45,830 It's just a matter of time. 723 00:42:45,830 --> 00:42:47,160 Aaah!57140

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